Where is Mystic Meg when you need her? We would, it appears, be just as well turning to the powers of the Accrington-based astrologer and psychic for guidance on an independent Scotland’s position within the EU as we would be in seeking the help of Alex Salmond’s Scottish Government. Yesterday

Alex Salmond’s SNP government at Holyrood has, thus far, built a well-deserved reputation for administrative and political competence. Yesterday, spectacularly, the wheels came off. Losing two backbenchers who honourably quit over last week’s SNP conference decision to dump all previous

Scots are increasingly turning their backs on Alex Salmond’s dream of independence with support for leaving the UK plunging, an exclusive opinion poll for The Times reveals today. The Ipsos MORI poll of 1,000 Scots, the first to be published since Monday’s independence referendum agreement between

The plan to abolish the corroboration rule in Scots criminal cases has been thrown into doubt after High Court judges rejected the proposal. In a major review of Scots criminal law carried out last year, Lord Carloway said the rule, which ensures that key evidence is backed by two sources, was

Alex Salmond’s repeated claim that an independent Scotland would inherit Britain’s opt-outs from the euro and passport-free travel in the European Union was badly undermined by three constitutional experts yesterday. They told a House of Commons committee that if Scotland voted to leave the United

Scotland should raise about two thirds of all the money it spends, a new report is expected to say. A commission set up by the Scottish Liberal Democrats under Sir Menzies Campbell, the former party leader, also proposes that the Act of Union should be replaced by a declaration of federal union

Alex Salmond yesterday hailed the “historic agreement” that will deliver a simple “yes/no” vote on Scottish independence in 2014, but gave a strong indication that he would have preferred a second question on the referendum ballot paper. While the First Minister has always claimed his own

David Cameron and Alex Salmond are meeting in Edinburgh to sign a historic deal which clears the way for a referendum on Scottish independence by the end of 2014. On his way to meeting Scottish First Minister Salmond, the Prime Minister visited the assembly site at Rosyth in Fife of the aircraft

Labour at Holyrood refused to rule out a return to means-testing yesterday as it embarked on a review of universal free entitlement to services in Scotland. James Kelly, the party’s chief whip at the Scottish Parliament, said that the aim of the commission set up by Johann Lamont to examine the

Recent political history is littered with the shattered illusions of political parties that have appealed to the higher instincts of voters in the hope that they would reap the electoral benefit. In Scotland in 1999 at the first devolution election, the SNP urged Scots to forego a 1p cut in income